STOCKTON - The Diocese of Stockton is considering filing for bankruptcy after years of paying millions of dollars to settle child sex abuse lawsuits.

"We pretty much have depleted the resource funds that we have," said Sister Terry Davis, a spokeswoman for the diocese that oversees Catholic parishes in San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Calaveras and Tuolumne counties.

"And at this point, everything is on the table for consideration," she said.

Talk of bankruptcy surfaced during negotiations of a lawsuit that was settled Monday for $1.75 million involving notorious defrocked priest Oliver O'Grady.

The plaintiff in the case, known as John J.S. Doe, filed suit in 2009 in Stanislaus County Superior Court. He was a victim of O'Grady in the 1980s, according to the diocese.

O'Grady, who has admitted to sexually abusing 25 children, has left a path of legal claims against the diocese since being criminally convicted in 1993 for molesting two Turlock brothers.

The diocese paid $7 million to the brothers, John and James Howard, in a subsequent civil suit and millions more in settling complaints that followed.

Davis said the diocese is not disclosing the total amount of damages the diocese has paid in settling sex abuse cases at this time.

By December 2010, according to a Modesto Bee article, the diocese had settled 22 civil lawsuits at a cost of $18.7 million.

More such civil cases have been dismissed with agreements since then.

And complaints continue to surface years after O'Grady was defrocked and deported to his native Ireland after serving a prison sentence.

A man identified in court papers with the fictitious name John Be Doe - the court allows plaintiffs in sex abuse cases to use such names to protect their identities - filed a complaint in San Joaquin County Superior Court in May 2012, alleging O'Grady molested him in 1992 when he was 5 years old. O'Grady was assigned to St. Andrew's Parish in San Andreas at that time.

Four months later, in September, a woman came forward saying O'Grady sexually abused her in 1991 and 1992 while she was a child parishioner of the San Andreas church. The woman, Jane Doe 51, was 11 and 12 years old when the abuse happened, she said.

O'Grady had been assigned to parishes in San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Calaveras counties from the time he arrived in 1971 until the early 1990s.

Paul Balestracci of Neumiller & Beardslee in Stockton has said he is representing the diocese on four child sex abuse lawsuits, including Jane Doe 51's and two others naming O'Grady as the perpetrator.

O'Grady isn't the only priest at the center of the diocese's sex abuse scandal.

Rev. Michael Kelly, the former pastor of St. Joachim's Church in Lockeford, abruptly left to Ireland in the middle of a civil trial in which a former altar boy claimed Kelly raped him.

Later identified as Travis Trotter, he won a $3.75 million settlement from the diocese. Trotter said he retired as a commercial air pilot because of psychological damage that came with retrieving repressed memories of the abuse.

Also in September, a 24-year-old former altar boy filed suit on claims Kelly sexually assaulted him in the early 2000s when they both served St. Andrew's Parish. That plaintiff, John CC Doe, said he was 12 years old at the time.

And about six months ago, a third alleged victim of Kelly's came forward saying he, too, was molested in the early 2000s. Referenced in court as John MT Doe, he was 11 years old and also a member of St. Andrew's when he says he was abused.

In Monday's settlement, Bishop Stephen Blaire said the church will pay $875,000 to the plaintiff, and the rest will come from insurance.

"It is our hope that this settlement will help the victim continue to find healing for the suffering he endured," Blaire said in the statement. "We have tried to find resolutions to these cases that will provide some measure of solace for victims.

"We continue to follow strict measures to ensure that we are protecting the young and the vulnerable."

The victim's attorney, John Manly of Newport Beach, declined to comment on details of the case, but he agreed to comment on the settlement discussions.

"The diocese makes it sound like this was a heartfelt and purely intentional settlement on their part," Manly said. "It wasn't."

Manly said the diocese declined a previous $1 million offer two or three years ago and went to the state Supreme Court to have the case dismissed.

When the plaintiff persisted with his claim, the diocese threatened his attorneys with bankruptcy, Manly said.

"This is one more example of the diocese leadership engaging in hardball legal tactics," he said.

Manly, who also represented Trotter and is the attorney for John CC Doe's and John MT Doe's pending cases, said he thinks it's important parishioners know the diocese is considering filing for bankruptcy.

In response to questions about a potential bankruptcy, Davis said no decision has been made. "But we are assessing very carefully what our future move will be," she said.